


Elementalists

by Do_the_Cool_Whip



Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-09
Updated: 2020-04-09
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:27:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23566072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Do_the_Cool_Whip/pseuds/Do_the_Cool_Whip
Summary: Everyone is born with one. This is a well known unavoidable truth of the world. Every single individual in the world in the world has the power of an element locked away in their soul. It’s not a matter of whether or not you have it, but whether or not you can access it. And the members of the Batfamily definitely can.
Relationships: Cassandra Cain & Jason Todd & Tim Drake, Dick Grayson & Bruce Wayne, Dick Grayson & the Robins, Jason Todd & Bruce Wayne, Jason Todd & Damian Wayne, Stephanie Brown & Cassandra Cain, Stephanie Brown & Damian Wayne
Comments: 5
Kudos: 116





	Elementalists

**Author's Note:**

> I am still posting random things I find in the bowels of my document because why not? I have that power, I may as well use it. I think I overdid it with the relationship tags, but eh, sounds like something I can deal with later.
> 
> There's not going to be any sort of consistency between chapter lengths, I'm pretty sure Bruce ended up with the shortest one, but that might just be because I haven't gotten to Alfred, yet. Anyways, I hope someone is able to get some enjoyment out of this clusterfuck of a story.

It should come to no surprise that Bruce’s ability unlocks itself the second his parents lay dead on the floor and the mugger moves to turn his gun on him.

Bruce is on his knees, tears dripping down his face, scared shitless in a puddle of urine and blood, when he feels something drape over him. It’s cold and comforting and familiar and foreign and terrifying and tranquil all at the same time. Bruce hates it and loves it all at once. Because it’s the same feeling he gets when he plays Hide and Seek with Dad and Mom gives him a little help, the same sensation he got minutes ago when Mom grabbed his hand when the mugger first brandished his gun, the same aura that vanished before she even hit the ground. The mugger blinks, looks around frantically, before another police siren sends him scurrying out of the alley.

He sits there for what feels like hours, grasping Mom’s hand and begging for Dad to wake up, when a cop shows up, poking his head into the alley to investigate the muffled sobs—instead of skittering passed the alley hurriedly, refusing to even chance a glance to see what had happened inside. It’s when the red-haired cop kneels down by Mom’s side, mouth pulled into a horrified grimace as he raises a radio to his mouth, that Bruce feels the cloak enshrouding him recede.

The cop gasps, jerking slightly as he moves to stare at him, and Bruce is unable to speak only sob harder as the man pulls off his coat and drapes it over Bruce’s trembling shoulders.

* * *

Over the rest of his childhood, Bruce spends his time mastering his control over the shadows. It drives Alfred crazy and the man constantly chases after him, insisting that he do almost anything else with his spare time than sit around in a dark corner by himself. He gets better with his shadows as a result. Because every time Bruce devises a method to hide himself and practice in peace, Alfred shows up to badger him into doing something else. Bruce gets more and more creative in his desperation to have time to practice and each time Alfred takes slightly longer to find him. When Bruce leaves to travel the world, he does so with the knowledge that he has mastered his element.

Except he hasn’t.

When he stumbles across the League of Assassins, Bruce learns that there is still so much more for him to learn about what it means to have access to the element in your soul. He has plenty of knowledge he’s gained through his own experimentation, some that not even R’as al Ghul knows, just as R’as knows plenty that he does not, and the two of them pool together their knowledge to innovate the usage of the shadows.

But beyond that, there’s still plenty the League of Assassins has to offer him. It’s through the League that Bruce learns his full potential. He learns how to properly fight with the shadows, how to counteract the elements of others, and other necessary combat skills required for taking down an unknown superior foe with no preparation and an inability to access his shadows. When Bruce finally leaves the League, he does not make his decision lightly. He has regrets about it, about leaving Talia and a guaranteed position as the next Demon Head.

But, in the end, Bruce knows that Gotham needs his immediate help now far more than R’as al Ghul and Talia. Besides, Bruce isn’t fully convinced by R’as’ methods nor has he completely determined what the man’s end goal is. He does, however, know his own goal. Bruce’s goal is to stop criminal scum, not become one of them.

* * *

When the Graysons fall to their death, Bruce is sitting stunned in the audience. The performance had been amazing up until that point. The way the adult Graysons had utilized their elements, water and lightning, had given him so many ideas on how to deal with several of the elemental super villains in Gotham.

Elemental combinations are something he knows about more in theory than in practice because it is simply too hard and dangerous for most people to pull off. The amount of trust it would take for an individual to allow someone else to guide their element, especially in incredibly risky combinations like water and lightning, meant that most elementals never attempted to mix elements with one another.

But, here he is watching as people do just that for entertainment. It’s astounding and fantastic and breathtakingly beautiful, and as drops of electrified water whiz passed his head so fast he feels a blast of wind, Bruce marvels at the control necessary for them to do this.

He suddenly understands the recent rave reviews the circus has been getting. Why this performance is currently considered one of, if not the, best in the elemental business. It’s not just a trapeze act with some cheap elemental tricks added for some pizzazz like he’d originally thought when Alfred insisted he come here for the night instead of “skulking around in the shadows of the house.” Instead, it is a complex combination of skilful aerial work complimented by meticulous and complicated elemental work.

And that boy, Richard Grayson, Bruce knows he can expect great things from him if he ever develops his affinity. Things so great that Bruce will probably be better served by following his career. Because with parents like this, there is no way that the boy won’t be an innovator of elemental skills. It’s just a matter of which of his parents’ element he will inherit: Lightning or Water. Assuming he hasn’t unlocked his element already. That’s the sort of information that gets hidden thoroughly until the boy is either an adult or able to defend himself.

The criminal underworld has kidnapped children for less.

When the Graysons fall to their death, Bruce is sitting stunned in the audience. The first line snaps as the father tosses his son over to the other bar, as his wife flips over to him, her son passing so close over her head, the crowd has a brief moment of thinking they’ll crash. When his hands grasp his wife’s, he makes one last ditch attempt to throw her over his head, up to the line, as he plummets down.

He shouldn’t be able to throw her without anything to brace himself on and the fact that he does indicates that he was the lightning elemental, temporarily utilizing electricity to constrict and contract the muscles in his arm in shoulder to give him the strength to manage that throw.

The lines for the other bar snaps as Richard grabs it. For a fraction of a second, it looks like Richard stops on top of the air. But then the boy sees his parents, lets out a horrified scream and the illusion is shattered as he plunges to the ground with his parents.

Gotham is hot and muggy this time of a year, a very beneficial trait for this show, which is why it is very noticeable when most of the water in the tent leaves the air. It swirls and condenses underneath the boy in a pillar that shoots up to meet him, slowing down his fall before he has time to reach a dangerous speed.

Richard will survive. He will survive and have to deal with the guilt of manifesting his element too late to save his parents. He will survive and Bruce has to focus on that because otherwise he’ll have to focus on his own guilt for not being able to stop this.

The father hits the floor.

Even if he had been Batman instead of Bruce Wayne, there would be nothing he could do to stop this. Shadows can only do so much.

The mother hits the ground.

The water pillar, which must have had some sort of cycling current that caused it to push up against the boy and slow his descent, collapses. It collapses into a puddle of water and the boy falls the last few metres to the ground.

Bruce was wrong.

Richard will survive. He’ll survive with the guilt that his mother chose to save his life instead of her own. It’s the sort of guilt that drowns you with the knowledge that she chose you over herself. It’s the kind of guilt that whispers to you in the middle of the night that she made the wrong choice, and if not for you, she would still be alive. It’s the type of guilt that never fails to remind you that this is entirely your fault.

It’s an infinitely worse source of guilt. And Bruce decides in that instance that he will help the boy, Richard Grayson, come to terms with it.

_Shadows are misdirection and illusions. They hide everything and anything you can think to put in them. They are fear and myths and the things that go bump in the night. And yet, they exist everywhere and are never more terrifying than in the presence of light. Bruce is shadows. He is terror and deception and everywhere you look, yet nowhere to be found. He is a cape draped around you that offers safety and peace and sanctuary. He is a squirming writhing silhouette that changes shape whenever you think you can identify it. He is the monster that keeps the other monsters away so that the prey they feed on can play in peace. When Bruce accesses his affinity, he changes from a man to a legend and accepts the darkness so deeply entrenched in his own soul it’s a miracle anyone can see him through the shroud of shadows he cloaks himself in._


End file.
